“Then explain it.”
She looked at my daughter.
Then at me.
“I thought if I documented everything, you’d finally see how difficult she was becoming.”
I looked at the dates.
The entries were not medical observations. They were judgments.
Refused.
Dependent.
Difficult.
Uncooperative.
And beside some of those words were the same days my daughter remembered having her walker taken away.
The pattern was suddenly impossible to ignore.
The walker had been removed.
My daughter had struggled.
Then the struggle had been written down as proof that she was the problem.
I felt something cold settle in my stomach.
She had not been documenting my daughter’s condition.
She had been helping create it.
I put the paper on the counter.
“I am calling her doctor.”
Her stepmother shook her head.
“You’re overreacting.”
“No.”
I picked up my phone.
“I am checking the facts.”
That was the first time she looked genuinely afraid.
